Guilty of 'brutal and horrific' murders

EVIL Rahan Arshad has been convicted of the brutal killings of his wife and three children. First he beat to death his unfaithful wife Uzma Rahan with a rounders bat in the bedroom of their Stockport home, hitting her head at least 23 times. Then he systematically slaughtered his three young children as they slept.

EVIL Rahan Arshad has been convicted of the brutal killings of his wife and three children and sentenced to life in prison after the jury found him guilty of all four counts of murder.

First he beat to death his unfaithful wife Uzma Rahan with a rounders bat in the bedroom of their Stockport home, hitting her head at least 23 times. Then he systematically slaughtered his three young children as they slept.

He carried them downstairs one by one, placed them on the floor and battered them to the head with the same bat.

He covered each corpse as he went on his killing spree to avoid alarming his next victim. Arshad tried to get rid of the evidence and then fled on a pre-booked flight to Thailand. The badly decomposed bodies were found almost a month later and an international manhunt was launched.

Arshad was tracked down on the Thailand-Malaysia border and, after a three week trial at Manchester Crown Court, he was convicted of murdering his wife and children.

Arshad shook his head as the verdicts were read out today. The judge, Mr Justice David Clarke, recommended he serve life.

Horrific

The judge said: “The jury convicted you on overwhelming evidence of the brutal and horrific murder of your wife and children. The only sentence permitted by law is that of life imprisonment on each count.”

He said he could have fixed a minimum tariff which would have been many decades but he was satisfied that in this case it was not required as his crimes were so exceptional.

“You have killed your entire family in circumstances of great brutality. You have beaten your wife to death in her bedroom and then blatantly and deliberately carried your sleeping children one by one downstairs to meet their deaths. You left the scene and you fled the country. It was over three weeks before their bodies were discovered in the house.”